Heavenly Mother (weekend poll)

Eliza R. Snow wrote a famous verse of the LDS hymn O My Father. Verse 3 has almost become scripture in LDS circles.

I had learned to call thee Father,

Thru thy Spirit from on high,

But, until the key of knowledge

Was restored, I knew not why.

In the heav’ns are parents single?

No, the thought makes reason stare!

Truth is reason; truth eternal

Tells me I’ve a mother there.

This has led many feminists to want to know more about Heavenly Mother. If families are eternal, and this life will be similar to the next life, then Heavenly Mother makes sense.

However, not everyone feels the same. At Sunstone recently, there was a panel titled, “Why I Don’t Need Heavenly Mother.” The case was made that God transcends gender, and Jesus, as part of the Atonement, would have had to transcend his male body in order to truly understand female issues, such as a infertility, miscarriage, menopause, or even painful menstruation. Does God transcend sex and gender roles? How can Jesus fully understand feminine issues if He doesn’t transcend gender roles?

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40 thoughts on “Heavenly Mother (weekend poll)”

This is one of those beliefs that kind of freaks me out a bit. I tend to want to focus on what Christ actually taught rather than wander off into “uncharted” territory. I guess I feel that if the concept of a Heavenly Mother were truly important enough for me to know, Christ would have mentioned it at some point during His earthly ministry. To my knowledge, it is not mentioned in any book of scripture in our possession. Maybe that should tell us something?????

To me, the concept of Heavenly Mother totally makes sense. It seems to fit into what we are taught the purpose of life is within Mormonism. (Eternal Families)

Here is what doesn’t make sense. The church places huge emphasis on traditional family relationships. Both mother and father work together to raise children righteousness, etc. Yet spiritually it is as if we are being raised by a single parent, Heavenly Father. He is the only one talked about, he is the only only one we pray to, he is the one we are waiting on to answer prayers and give us direction. At church on Sunday, I hear countless people say they know Heavenly Father loves them and they love him. Heavenly Mother is totally absent. I don’t know if I really consider myself a feminist, but I consider this a BIG problem.

Almost 200 years have passed since the restoration, and no prophets have received revelation on this matter. I hope it is a mystery that will be revealed soon. We do believe God continues to reveal right? It’s an article of faith. The prophets today seem to be much more of managers than revelators but I will try to have faith that more knowledge will come.

The current state of religious doctrines and beliefs in 2015 still seem to be warped by the lens of sexism. I hope in reality Heavenly Mother is much more involved up there, and our prophets can clue us in a bit more.

I really like the concept of a Heavenly Mother, but I think the LDS Church would be better off without her, because the current doctrinal treatment of her is so incredibly sexist it does more damage than good. Better to have a genderless god who can represent all people than a patriarchal god where the female deity is completely absent.

The doctrines revealed during the Nauvoo period pretty much imply there must be a Heavenly Mother. But those same doctrines lead to some uncomfortable (and unpopular) things like polygamy.

There will not be any new revelation on this matter: the leadership is not interested in it. All actions from church headquarters seem to be aimed at making the church seem mainstream, and adding another figure to the god-head goes in the opposite direction.

If multiple choices were allowed, I would have selected that she is equal, subordinate, and doesn’t exist. As far as i can tell all of those choices are equally consistent with LDS teachings. Nephi and the family proc say men and women are equal. The family proc and overall church structure(and arguably D&C) show that men preside. And the complete lack of any feminine God in scripture speaks to nonexistence.

As for any expectation of revelation clearing this up, if history is any guide the best we can hope for is a few changes in the phrasing of the gospel principles manual. The correlation department will want to be consistent and no revelation will be sought that draws the church further from mainstream Christianity.

Only in the last hundred years has our society come even remotely close to treating men and women as equal. If I’m going to have new doctrine about HM, I’d much rather get it when we as a people have the mental capacity to actually view her as an equal to HF, rather than a consort or one of many subordinate wives.

#4 (Joel) wrote: “Better to have a gender-less god who can represent all people than a patriarchal god where the female deity is completely absent.” More LGBT and feminist dogma in an attempt to remake our Heavenly parentage into a self-serving image.

Gender, in fact, is a part of our eternal identity, hence the Church’s stance via the Proclamation on the Family, etc. It would make no sense to have a ‘neutered’ God, yet “He” gives us “His” Son, who in His MORTAL ministry was certain a male, a man, and what a Man!

True, Heavenly’s Mother’s existence is more inferred than explicitly revealed, but that in no way renders her the ‘hidden One’, like some good Japanese hausfrau, dutifully walking two steps behind and one step to the right of her husband. Do keep in mind that OUR perspective is limited to this mortality on this 3rd planet from an average star in the Sagittarius Arm of but one Galaxy, so there’s really no way to determine what Her role is, but likely it’s far more significant than we can comprehend.

Of course, I’ve also heard the argument that our Heavenly Father, being a Person with parts and passions, could endure Himself being insulted, and likewise His Son (who bore all manner of insult and indignity in His mortal sojurn), but would not suffer it so for His Bride…and yet, methinks She’s the ultimate “big girl” and can take care of Herself.

I have no issue proclaiming Heavenly Mother’s existence since it seems self-evident, as Eliza Roxcy Snow wrote in that Hymm. Still, I stick to the ‘script’, and refuse to engage in idle speculation. We’ve been directed to pray to the Father in the Name of His Son, and that suffices for now.

For me, Mother in heaven is equal to Father in Heaven. If D/C 132 is correct, then she is a God as well. I am not sure of a good reason why she is not mentioned more in church today.It seems to be a cultural thing. David Paulsen and Martin Pulido found over 600 references to her in an article titled “A Mother There, A survey of historical teachings about Mother in Heaven” located at byu studies.

I sometimes wonder if Heavenly Father has charge of this planet but Heavenly Mother has charge of another planet. Our planet is a patriarchy, but maybe her planet is a matriarchy. Just a Star Trek inspired thought I have sometimes had.

If there is a divinity, of course it would have a balance between the masculine and feminine, just as there are in all forms of life. If God is masculine, as He is in LDS doctrine, then there must be a divine feminine counterpart. Heavenly Mother is a recognition of this spiritual fact and an attempt to conceptualise it. Regardless of how the Divine Feminine is conceptualised, we can recognise within the gospel balanced dualities that somewhat reflect our experiences with masculine/feminine duality: justice/mercy, faith/works, wisdom/truth, etc.

It’s not that I’m categorically assigning “justice” to masculine, and “mercy” to feminine. Rather, these are reflections of complimentary dualities within the gospel which add up to completeness. Justice + Mercy is a complimentary duality not unlike the duality of the masculine and feminine. “The man is not without the woman in the Lord.”

If the Gospel is complete and balanced between these complimentary dualities, do we need an anthropomorphic Heavenly Mother? Only as a token conceptualisation to balance our conceptualisation of Heavenly Father as male. Doesn’t the gospel already include all that a divine feminine could give? When we speak of a need for a Heavenly Mother, it is not because we miss what a Mother could give in the gospel. It is because our superficial anthropomorphisation of the divine is unbalanced.

But perhaps a more doctrinally present Heavenly Mother would help people conceptualise the feminine side of the Divine, and this could be a positive advance in the church. Catholics are at a great advantage in having Mary as an advocate for the Father, which is much easier to conceptualise than Christ as advocate for the Father, a Christ which Mormons are not really supposed to even pray to.

The never ending rhetoric about the “family” appears to be a bit odd and empty without reference to Heavenly Mother. It seems strange that we have the doctrine of HM, push the “family” to the nth degree and don’t link the two up…???

“Catholics are at a great advantage in having Mary as an advocate for the Father.”

The Catholics don’t have an advantage over anything. Stephen saw both the Father and the Son when he was being killed and probably understood them more than anybody that ever lived, meaning that we can all come to that if we undertake to do the things God wants us to do, which I don’t know what is, but it would come by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Mike:
In the temple both genders wear the garments of the priesthood.To me that means that women will not just hold the priesthood, they will also use it. I’m not sure what to do about what Hawkgrrrl says, but whatever.

Rockwell:
The things you say I find interesting, but I would like to find truth and destroy the things you’ve said. I don’t find them dangerous but I don’t know why you say them. Maybe I’m swimming to much in my upbringing, but here’s a question for you: Do you ask God about the truth of things that you study?

This is NOT a put down. Prayer is hard for me to do, but I have done it sometimes and it works. I will continue to read what you said and try to figure it out.

“To my knowledge, it is not mentioned in any book of scripture in our possession. Maybe that should tell us something?????”

Oh, there isn’t? Maybe it’s time for you to consider something.

1 Nephi 11
16 And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?
17 And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.
18 And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.

Consider, in verse 18, That Mary was the mother of Jesus when Jesus was born in the flesh which is different from the rest of us that we had other physical mothers, but when all the rest of us, including Jesus, were born in the preexistence we were born to an exalted mother. Hence we all have two births: a spiritual pre-existent birth and a mortal physical birth. How did Heavenly Father choose to accomplish that? Through the existence of Heavenly Mother.

Poor Eliza Snow. She had the truth but all the priesthood since then were too stupid to see that.

Have to say, I don’t really like “O My Father”, and personally prefer the idea of a deity encompassing all traits as opposed to two binary representations.
There’s an interesting hymn speaking about the mother aspect of deity written by Jean Janzen (I prefer the tune “Mother Julian” by John Bell).

I’m going to help Rich take apart some of the things you said, because some of it is concerning.

Start with statements about what church leadership is or isn’t interested in. You have no knowledge or evidence. There is no way for you to know what the leadership intends or desires other than by using their own public statements, which you did not cite.

As to the position of heavenly mother, I have to disagree that there is any real evidence that she is subordinate. Although I see you can cite evidence to the contrary, it appears to be culturally biased and inconsistent. That leaves the question of whether HM exists as a part of LDS theology. I have to say that if you stick to canon, there is little to no evidence supporting a heavenly mother outside of D&C. But we are a living church that believes in continuing revelation, so I think we can weigh the D&C, as well as statements from Joseph Smith, and references to heavenly parents in Gen Conference and the family proc, and conclude that there IS a Heavenly Mother, coequal with Heavenly Father, and they are One God.

What I can’t figure out is polygamy. Once you believe marriage is eternal, and you seal people on earth to a new spouse after they are widowed, polygamy becomes a necessary construct, yet it is anathema to our common sense of decency. I haven’t figured out how to reconcile this. I want to be with my family forever, but what about my friend whose first spouse died after a couple of years of marriage? Will they have to choose between families? Or live in a polygamous eternal relationship? This is a point I’m not prepared to argue.

This is hard to answer. I go back to “How do we know anything about God?” and I guess I’ve been taught to look to the scriptures and the prophets. Hymns count as scriptures, and many GC talks acknowledge the family unit is eternal and it makes most sense we have a mother. But it just isn’t in our scriptures.

Once I start thinking how patriarchal and one-gender emphasis in cultures our prophets were in, I don’t know if there is yet to be revealed many great and wonderful doctrines…but as of yet…there just seems to be nothing concrete. So it is all speculative.

When speculative, it requires reason and inspiration, and looking for things consistent in the scriptures. And…I start to become agnostic about knowing how we know anything. We seem to assume we know so much about Heavenly Father because Joseph Smith saw him and Jesus. While that can help us, it isn’t all we need to know about God.

But since we are speculating, I think kinda like HG, but with a twist. I have thought that HF has worked through the priesthood and church and there is just a percentage of His children believing in Him and that helps some of them be better.

What if HM is behind many of the other religions (Eastern religions, for example) where identify of god is not the emphasis but love and attributes of a nurturing god?

What if they are having a lovingly playful spousal competition? “You do it your way, I will do it my way and we’ll both see how best it turns out.”

I will also add, I don’t find speculating these things worthless. I may not “know”, but being open to things helps me. Reading others’ ideas helps me too.

We have a heavenly Mother. The order of the priesthood is patriarchal and the Father is always at the head and presides in eternity. This doesn’t mean Father controls Mother, it just means they are one and he is president. The powers and blessings are shared equally alike but there must be a head.

Rich, I don’t make it a habit to declare anything I learn through personal revelation as doctrine. I would like to see more prophetically declared doctrine, but in a way I’d prefer God to present that doctrine in a culture that is prepared to see women as equal to men. Otherwise, it’d just get morphed to reflect current societal views. Seeing women being considered more equal to men (easily notable in a range of general conference talks about womanhood just from the 1970s to today) gives me hope that God is preparing us to handle much better what interactions are like between men and women in the eternities.

When I first went to the temple and saw women being veiled, I had the distinct impression that just as men and women participate together in specific activities there, yet the woman is veiled, the way we are seeing God is the same. We see only one face from here in mortality, but that doesn’t mean another is not present and just as active. In the temple is where I tend to feel closest to Heavenly Mother. Even just recently as I watched the temple video, I was watching a depiction of men conversing in what was understood as the premortal realm. I also got a strong feeling then that something was off – people were missing. It doesn’t make me mad that no-one else was depicted (in live endowments the only number of people you need are those that have speaking parts). I just felt very strongly that there were more people (men and women) we weren’t seeing who were heavily involved in the creation of the world. There, I’ve returned and reported. 😉

I’m not a believer in a heavenly mother. I believe what God shares in our scripture (absolutely zero on this matter) and what the Church agrees to adopt as doctrine through a vote of common consent (absolutely zero on this matter). If God reveals it, I’ll believe it. Until then, I think it is reckless to teach anything about it. I see it as us creating God in our image (something human-kind has done since the beginning).

Our ancient and modern scripture jointly teach us something that we often discount, but the teaching must be there for a reason. Whether literal or figurative, our scripture teaches us that God created Adam from the dust of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life. Then, God divided Adam in two by creating Eve from Adam — Eve was not created in the same way Adam was; rather, Eve was taken from Adam. Adam by himself was no longer complete, but Adam and Eve together are complete, one flesh. There is some meaning in this story — there has to be; that’s why they told and wrote the story.

I make no pretence to speak for other Latter-day Saints in this matter.

“What if HM is behind many of the other religions (Eastern religions, for example) where identify of god is not the emphasis but love and attributes of a nurturing god?”

I think you will do better if you interpret the Joseph Smith first vision as Jesus telling Joseph not to join any other church in the world – not just his vicinity – including the Eastern Religions. That’s just what Joseph did was to send missionaries into the a great part of the world.(Ex. Levi Savage, I think, to China.)(Or maybe it was Brigham Young that sent him.)

“Rich, I don’t make it a habit to declare anything I learn through personal revelation as doctrine.”

Why do you do that? When I claim doctrine I mention a scripture and give my interpretation. I don’t make a statement, claiming it from God which than would need no interpretation. Mary Ann, say what you think. If you have one, give a scripture. If you don’t, make a statement. Don’t worry about it. If I don’t care for it I’ll let you know. No problem.

“I’m not a believer in a heavenly mother. I believe what God shares in our scripture (absolutely zero on this matter) and what the Church agrees to adopt as doctrine through a vote of common consent (absolutely zero on this matter).”

I believe that the scriptures do show the existence of a Heavenly Mother. If the leaders want to interpret the scriptures that there is no Heavenly Mother, that’s what they can do. I’ve all ready given a scripture and my interpretation and I don’t believe they have even considered that scripture. I can’t ask them because they are behind an iron wall that I can’t get through. but all of that doesn’t make any difference what I claim as the true Church. That is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

JI thinks that people who are looking for HM are creating God in their own image . . . that’s what I think people are doing when they say all we have is HF. I think most of what we believe comes from mirroring what we can conceive with our human knowledge – including seeing God as “father.” They didn’t birth us, they organized intelligences.

The God I believe in is plural (Elohim is plural rite?) maybe like a HF & HM together as one. And what we see as HF is actually both. Why don’t we know more? Pay. Tree. Archy.

Stephen Marsh,
I was going to add the same thing . . . the original translation of genesis was:

“in the image of God created they [plural male and female] them, male and female …”

There are many articles on the bloggernacle discussing the presence of female diety in ancient mesopotamia and the old testament prior to Isaiah and the mono-theistic movement.

I don’t know why HM is left out of the salvation narrative, which is where she needs to appear for us to think she is important. I wonder whether Mary Magdaline, if she is Jesus’ wife, doesn’t fill a role as described above. Cheiko Okazaki believed Christ transcended gender roles in suffering for all female ailments (childbirth, miscarriages, menopause, abuse, etc.), but I wonder whether there isn’t something unique about a female mortal experience that is understood instead by our female diety.

I have no doubt that we’ll figure it out as the scales of the false traditions of our fathers fall from our eyes and as we grow. It just might not happen together as a correlated church. I am angry that our communal concern for image and mainstreamism trumps our desire to seek and share these precious truths.

If “transcend gender” means “is not gendered,” I don’t buy it which is why I didn’t choose that option. (I chose “equal.”) But I do think that Heavenly Father, and Heavenly Mother, are each able to understand the sufferings of their children of either gender. I’d think “perfection” would include “perfect empathy.” If that’s what we mean by “transcend gender,” sign me up. I do think gender is eternal – FWIW, I don’t think biological sex gets done right every single time.

Although I realize that plural marriage and Heavenly Mother emerged from the same cauldron of doctrinal stew in the Nauvoo period, I don’t think there’s anything in a doctrine of a married God that necessitates or implies polygamy. Speculation that God has multiple wives (one for each tribe of Israel, or whatever your flavor of space doctrine is) is purely speculation.

On who’s ultimately in charge, I’m torn. I think it’s probably more complex and simpler than we think now, but I’m not willing to discount the notion of presidency simply because a) it’s abused and b) people I love and respect don’t like it. I think further study and less last-ditch defense is needed.